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There are many - myself included, who believe in the adage "it
starts from the top down" when it comes to leadership in
a company or business. I don't care if it's
a professional sports team or a business that has just
a few employees. How the leader of that company acts, thinks and carries
his or herself on a daily basis goes a long way to ensuring the
overall success or failure of that company.

And when it comes to the use of social
media - or lack thereof, it appears one group
of CEOs is not doing their part or carrying their load
or whatever catch phrase you happen to prefer.

As a follow up to their report done earlier this year on CEOs and
social media, Domo and CEO.com just released the
findings of another report or study. However, unlike their
earlier report which focused squarely on the CEOs
of Fortune 500
companies, this one was "designed to compare and
contrast social
media habits among leaders of America’s largest companies (Fortune 500) and
America’s fastest-growing companies (Inc. 500)."

Now before you social media non-believers come out, you know
who you are, consider the following results of survey done by
BRANDfog which revealed:

More than 82% of respondents are likely or much more likely
to trust a company whose CEO and team engage in social media

77% of respondents are likely or much more willing to buy
from a company if a leader is involved in social media

So you can you see why I apply the "winner" tag to one group
over others. It's clear to me why social media is so
important when it comes to CEOs. And I am not alone for
people like Josh James the CEO of Domo who, in
writing about the findings of his initial report in an
article for Forbes entitled CEOs Afraid Of Going Social
Are Doing Shareholders A Massive Disservice, said "CEOs
who shun social media risk losing touch with some of their
most lucrative customers, prospects and influencers."

"... using social technologies to engage with customers,
suppliers and employees will enable the organization to be
more adaptive and agile."

Mark also said something that ties very nicely back into my
opening remarks "CEOs and their executives set the cultural
tone for an organization. Through participation, they
implicitly promote the use of social technologies."

Below is the obligatory infographic - and I don't use the
"obligatory" in a negative way by any means, I merely mean
infographics are now the norm and I happen to love them -
about the findings of the Domo and CEO.com report which spell
out in detail across the specific social media networks the
differences between Fortune 500 CEOs and Inc. 500 CEOs.

When it comes to social media, Inc. 500 CEO's in comparison
to Fortune 500 CEOs are:

7.6 times more likely to be on Twitter
— and 12.9 times more likely to be active on Twitter

And as previously mentioned, 79% of Inc. 500 CEOs have a
social presence on at least one network compared to only
30% of Fortune 500 CEOs who have a social media presence.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is, well the bottom line. Obviously every CEO,
CMO, and every employee in every company wants to increase
revenue, move products... make money for the company. At least
they should.

And in today's completely transparent world, where no pile of
sand is big enough to bury one's head in and where consumers
are completely in charge, CEOs need to realize the importance
of "being out there" among those who ultimately control their
fate. They need to take full advantage of this golden
opportunity that social media affords
them that their counterparts of years past did not have.
Sources: Domo, CEO.com